Born in Tripoli (Lybia) in 1938, Giannetto Bravi lived in Naples, where he graduated as a geologist, then in Saronno and Cislago, near Milan. He died in 2013.
Together with Pierre Restany and others, he created the “Vesuvio Initiative” at the beginning of the seventies, in Naples.
Since 1972, Bravi often made use of postcards, mailing Vesuvio’s images as testimonials of the Initiative and, later, assembling many identical items in order to produce paintings, or artist’s books, as in the 1980 exhibition at Milan's Studio Marconi, “Portrait-Self-portrait of Seven Art Critics: G. Ballo, A.B. Oliva, A. Del Guercio, G. Dorfles, F. Menna, P. Restany, L. Vergine (curated by F. Menna).
Suitcases are another frequent subject and has been showed for the first time at the exhibition “Une Perpétuelle Invitation au Voyage” (1971) at Apollinaire Centre in Milan, curated by Pierre Restany.
The most recent cycle of works is the “Quadreria”, a work in progress made of postcards portraying painting masterpieces, collected at the bookshops of the leading European art museums and exhibited at Naples' Capodimonte Museum, in 2007.